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Wednesday, January 25, 2017

I have not fallen off the face of the earth, despite what the lack of blogging may lead you to assume. It's just the last several weeks have been that of upheaval and transition.

I think I've mentioned in the past that last January things transpired such that my mother in law moved in with us. It was a fairly quick decision to have her come here, but we tried to make it work, feeling it a better option for her than a personal care home. Unfortunately my MIL passed away on January 7th after a incredibly short two day illness, just shy of one year since moving in. It was completely unexpected in the manner that earlier that day she had been fine and talk was of her coming home from the hospital within a few days. Needless to say it was a shock to get a call from the hospital three hours later asking my husband to come back as quickly as he could as she was in severe respiratory distress.

I also, of course, started back to work full time just three days prior to her passing away. As a result of everything going on, I'm exhausted, have not even remotely figured out how to balance working full time and obligations at home and my creative side has been starved.

I know it'll all settle down, we will all adjust to the new routines, 5:00am won't seem quite so ungodly and I'll get the hang of things at work and feel like I'm making headway instead of floundering continuously as I navigate through inventory programs and figure out the differences between machine parts and gain some confidence. At least I know my way around the place now and am not too much at risk of getting lost anymore. It does help that I work with my husband and he often drops everything to come to my rescue with answers. (and directions along with a thorough tour those first few days) Maybe some day I'll be able to stay awake past 8:30pm again. Maybe some day I'll also be able do a bit of sewing or more than a row or two of knitting. I just feel completely overwhelmed at the moment.

But I'm sure no one comes here to read about my whining and feeling sorry for myself. So moving along. I have done a very teeny bit of knitting since Christmas and I have big plans to get reacquainted with my sewing machine this weekend... I hope.

I made a pair of mitts. They were more a necessity than anything. All my mitts somehow ended up with holes in the thumbs at the same time (how does that even happen???). Rather than do the quick thing and just re-knit thumbs, I decided a brand new pair would be much more fun. And since I was in it for the fun, I thought colour work would be brilliant.

I chose Wolastoq, a pattern that caught my eye earlier in the fall when I stumbled across it on Ravelry. I had lots of colours of Patons Classic Worsted in my stash so I didn't need to go yarn shopping. Better yet was it gave me a reason to finally use a tiny ball of cashmere dk weight yarn I'd been hoarding in my stash for years since it was gifted to me. My mitts have a gloriously soft pop of colour in the inner cuff thanks to that cashmere!

My only gripe about my mitts are that they are really thick (sounds like a good problem to have right?) so they do not easily fit under my super tight cuffs of my parka and either fold down or don't go on all the way making them like huge monster mitts on my hands. I need to find a solution so that they are a bit more comfortable to wear. Just to be clear it is totally a parka problem and not a pattern problem. I've run across this particular nuisance with every single pair of mitts I knit that are thicker than fingering weight and lets just face it. I live on the prairies. Fingering weight mitts are never going to cut it in -45C.

In other knitting news, I've started knitting a new cardigan for myself as part of Andi Satterlund's Untangling Knots annual Selfish Sweater KAL. I'm knitting an apple green Henriette in hopes I'll have it finished for springtime. (Well, hopefully I finish it for the KAL deadline of mid-February, but since I'm barely knitting these days I'm not holding out much hope in all reality).

Monday, January 02, 2017

I hope that the New Year is finding you all healthy and happy and looking forward to the blank slate of possibilities that is 2017!!

Baby Boy - #7 Timbits Initiation

I've not had time for much blogging for quite awhile now. Life seems to have a way of getting increasingly busier every time I turn around.

Hockey seems to have taken up a lot of the spare time this fall. Not that I'm complaining. The boys love it and it's been great for them! Little Man has finally started coming out of his shell at the rink and the day he was giggling with one of his team mates in the dressing room was a great day! I love seeing him making friends on the team and gaining confidence on and off the ice! However, it is a time consuming sport. I'm at the rink three days a week with the boys for practices and then we had games every weekend, often a game in one town in the morning for one boy and another town and another game a few hours later for the other. I had commented that I should just send out change of address cards listing the arena as my new home since I was there so often.

Funny story about that was when we bought our new truck last month every time we turned on the maps in the Car Play function it would reference a weird address as "home". I couldn't figure out why or even where the address was originating. That is until the day I was looking up the hours for public skating at the arena and realized Siri was using the arena's address as home. LOL! I really must spend as much time as I feel like I do there. Ah... the life of a "hockey mom". Could be worse. I know some families are juggling around practices and games for four kiddos and their spouse. I've only got two to manage and every second year they should nicely end up in the same division. PHEW!

Little Man - #7 Novice

In other news, tomorrow, I'll be heading back to work full time. I'll be trading my sewing shears for work boots and a hard hat as I've taken a term position in a parts department! I'm both excited and terrified all at the same time. It'll be totally different for me, but I'm looking forward to a new challenge!

I'm not sure what time that will leave me for sewing, knitting and spinning, but I'm hoping I can still manage to squeak out a bit of time every now and again to enjoy my crafts. I know I used to manage it. I know that many people do manage it every day. I just need to wrap my head around the whole time management thing that is working outside of the home again. It's been nearly seven years, so I think I've just forgotten how to do it!

It's timely that Rochelle of Lucky Lucille has started her #2017MakeNine. Inspired by the challenge and all the sewists taking part over on Instagram I've decided to jump on board. Going back to work doesn't change my personal goal of having a self sewn wardrobe, so this feels like a great way to keep it going in a more manageable way.

I've already dived head first into my fabric bins and come up with some fabrics for my Make Nine projects!

The top fabric with the balls of yarn is for Betty. It was supposed to be made last summer, then in the early fall, and then for Christmas and well... you know how it goes. I already knit a cardi to match it a few months ago (more on that in a future blog post - how am I so behind on blogging about my projects?!?). The second from the top is a slinky, silky poly fabric that I bought ages ago for an Anderson Blouse or Pussy Bow Blouse and this is going to be THE YEAR that I get it sewn up. I'm thinking of using a gelatine treatment to tame that fabric into submission for cutting and sewing. Third in the stack is the denim I bought well over a year ago to make another pair of Liana jeans after I did the test for Itch to Stitch. Obviously they never got made, so hello Ginger Jeans! (another pattern I've had forever. It's even been printed out and assembled for probably a good year and a half...). The bottom fabric is another long time stash dweller. I've got to take a better look at it, but if I think it'll drape nicely, it's going to become Myrtle for next spring/summer.

So those are my upcoming plans for sewing. I'll have to catch up later with my annual round up of holiday crafting post and my plans for knitting and spinning, because I think I've prattled on far too long as is here today! (Thanks and congratulations if you're still reading!)

About Me

I am a mom of four boys - Baby Boy, Little Man, N, and J (born 2010, 2009, 1994 and 1990)and a girl - G (born 1992). The kids, my husband - (BF)G, and I also live with one cat, three dogs and two fish all of whom are possibly plotting to take over the world. My kids think I'm a geek, but I am quick to inform them that I am a "geek by choice not by nature!", which is definately a horse of a different colour all together! Spare moments of my time are usually taken up with my addiction to knitting and sewing. Possibly an unhealthy addiction, but then most addictions tend to be unhealthy in some way don't they?